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Just off Kechter Road, horses graze in small pastures on Fort Collins’ southeastern border. Rows of cut grass wait to be baled for feed.

Nearby, the “beep, beep, beep” of a bulldozer’s backup alarm breaks the rural silence as a handful of new homes sprout from the fallow ground.

This is southeast Fort Collins, one of the city’s fastest growing and most desirable places to live. A place where farmland is surrendering to development and developers are scrambling to meet a pressing demand for house lots.

Just east of the intersection of Kechter and Timberline roads, a 74-home subdivision known as Kechter Crossing is beginning to take shape. It’s the first development in a wave of nearly 1,000 new homes and apartments that will dot a geographic square bordered by Timberline on the west, Ziegler on the east, Kechter on the north and Trilby on the south and encompassing Fossil Creek Reservoir.

Kechter Crossing will eventually be joined by Kechter Farm, Hansen Farms, Crowne at Timberline and Mail Creek Crossing, subdivisions in the planning or development process.

Almost all the land falls in Larimer County but is in the city’s growth management area, meaning development plans will be reviewed and approved by the county before the projects are annexed to Fort Collins.

Kechter Crossing and Hansen Farms, 69 acres on the west side of Timberline, are already annexed. Kechter Farm, east of Timberline and west of Ziegler, is awaiting annexation. And Mail Creek Crossing, just south of Kechter Crossing, applied for annexation a week ago.

It’s a complex array of projects that together will transform more than 300 acres of undeveloped land into everything from apartments and townhomes to million-dollar properties with pristine views of the reservoir.

Many of the projects, dormant through the recession, are getting dusted off in the recovery.

“Southeast (Fort Collins) continues to be the most popular place that people want to live,” said Stan Everitt of Everitt Cos., the developer of Mail Creek Crossing. Named for the creek that bisects the project, Mail Creek will include nearly 140 homes on 40 acres adjacent to Kechter Crossing and Kechter Farm.

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He hopes to have some homes ready by September but will build in phases as the market demands.

McWhinney, at this point, is working on a plan but hasn’t decided whether to build single-family homes, apartments or some other housing mix, said Cole Evans with the company.

“It’s hard to give any updates other than it’s annexed and zoned,” he said. “It will be residential, but we don’t have a builder or any plans. Our goal and hope would be next year to start the city process but that’s us getting a plan in place.”

The land has been owned and operated as a family farm for nearly a century, historically hayfields and cropland.

The Homestead Subdivision is north of the property; Kinard Middle School and Fossil Lake Ranch are east; the reservoir is on the south; and Westchase residential development and undeveloped property lie to the west.

Considered an “Important Birding Area,” a global designation given by the Audubon Society to areas vital to birds and biodiversity, the reservoir is home to dozens of birds and waterfowl. In winter, about 60 bald eagles nest in trees on the property’s southeast edge, giving the illusion “of Alaska,” developer Mike Sollenberger said.

The city and county have dedicated more than $8 million for land protection along the shore to protect the wildlife as part of the Fossil Lake Reservoir Area Plan adopted in 1988.

“It is without a doubt one of our regional treasures that must be protected for future citizens of Larimer County to enjoy,” the Natural Resources Advisory Board wrote in support of Kechter Farms and the buffer it creates around the shoreline.

“Kechter Farm is the last remaining parcel to be developed around the reservoir, and it is important to do it right,” the memo said. “This will fill in the last piece of the puzzle to conserve Fossil Lake Reservoir Regional Open Space for the long term.”

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The site will feature small to large lots of about a half an acre built over five to seven years, said Sollenberger, who is developing the site with Mike Dougherty.

“There’s a lot of pent-up demand, especially for larger lots, and those buyers are now going to Timnath and Windsor,” he said. “This will keep them here if they want. The location is just spectacular. These people will be able to look out their back decks and see these eagles and other waterfowl out there. It’s truly a remarkable amenity.”

Once the project is annexed, Kocher Farm’s lots will be sold to Toll Brothers of Denver, which will build the homes.

“We selected them because for one thing the world has changed since the recession,” Sollenberger said. “Banks are not lending to small regional developers, so we are forced to sell to large national companies. We selected Toll Brothers because of their high quality.”

Capitalizing on growth

With development heating up along Harmony Road, including Harmony Technology Park and Presidio — the soon-to-be home of Banner Fort Collins Medical Center — plus Front Range Village that opened five years ago, there’s a strong balance of employment, retail and residential in the area, said Paul Brinkman, principal with Brinkman Partners, a Fort Collins development company that originally purchased the 74-acre Kechter Crossing property but later sold it to Denver-based Meritage Homes.

“We’ve always believed strongly in this location. What we’re seeing in employment growth in the southeast corridor is definitely very positive for the rooftop demand in the area,” he said.

With 70 percent job growth predicted for southeast Fort Collins, it’s no surprise residential growth is expected to top 40 percent in the next two decades.

Between 2011 and late September, the city issued residential construction permits that are expected to yield 1,853 dwellings in southeast Fort Collins. That does not include the additional 1,000 homes or apartments expected in this next wave of building.

Peter Meyer, whose house sits smack dab in the middle of what will become Kechter Crossing, is eager for neighbors even though it means living in a construction zone for a couple of years.

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He bought the spacious ranch on a large lot “75 days ago” from his employer, Brinkman Construction, which sold the property to Meritage but held on to the single-family home.

“I’m excited to have more houses around and a neighborhood,” he said. “I want to be the house where all the kids hang out.”

He loves the lot and the house and doesn’t even mind the construction, but he hopes there will be a bike path from the project to Bacon Elementary, where his daughter goes to school. Currently, “it’s a little hairy for a 7-year-old to ride.”

With traffic on Timberline Road already a concern, it begs the question of when Timberline will have to be widened.

Those conversations are already ongoing in the city, city traffic engineer Joe Olsen said.

“Long term needs to be discussed about widening Timberline to four lanes, that is the plan ultimately down to Trilby,” he said. But the timing for such a project is still to be determined. “The city is aware of it and it’s something we’re talking about.”

As projects come to fruition, some streets, like Tilden and Zephyr, will get connected, providing more traffic flow within and between neighborhoods.

Tilden Street will connect the Westchase neighborhood north through Kechter Crossing and connecting to Kechter Road.

“We’ve done everything we possibly could to make that a very safe route for pedestrians and bikes” by adding extra greenbelts, widening rights of way, and creating crossings with bridges that become aesthetic and pedestrian features, Everitt said.

Filling a gap

As the housing market rebounds, developers are finding a shortage of buildable lots to meet the demand. That means starting an expensive and long process of buying raw land, getting a development plan approved, building roads, installing water and sewer connections and curbs and gutters.

But will southeast Fort Collins run the risk of being overbuilt or oversupplied with lots? Maybe. Maybe not, said Brinkman and Everitt.

Most of the projects will be phased in as demands dictate. “That gives us the flexibility to do things in a smaller realm rather than get overextended,” Everitt said.

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There’s “no doubt” there will be a certain level of absorption given current demand, Brinkman said. “The question is: Is that sustainable and for how long?

“Projects that get done and permit ready over the next 18 months will do very, very well,” Brinkman said. “If you deliver lots two years out and more, there’s a lot more risk because of the unknown. The reality is if you provide a high-quality product at a good value pricewise in this community, you will be successful. What we are seeing in employment growth in the southeast corridor is definitely very positive for the rooftop demand in the area.”